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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26676802">High Society Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Nin/pseuds/Scarlet_Nin'>Scarlet_Nin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>You can run but you won't make it far, you can't hide from who you are [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alive Reginald Hargreeves, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Because Klaus Starting A "Cult" Is Bound To Attract Unwanted Attention And Affect The Timeline, Blood and Violence, Gen, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Gun Violence, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Immortal Klaus Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus Burshing Off Death Like It's Dust On His Skirt, Mentioned David "Dave" Katz, Mentioned The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy), Nobody Invited The Commission, Party Gone Wrong, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Season/Series 02, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, Temporary Character Death, The Swedes Crash The Party, The Swedes Don’t Wait For Five To Show Up Before They Start Their Murder Spree, season two rewrite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:34:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,820</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26676802</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Nin/pseuds/Scarlet_Nin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He can feel the moment Ben catches sight of the man, buckling under Klaus’ weight with his hands easing their hold of his waist. For a single, breathless second, he fears Ben will drop him, dumbstruck as they both are to see a familiar face in the crowd, but Ben corrects his stance when Klaus begins to tilt dangerously to one side, making a strangled noise similar to a cat getting run over by a truck and saves him from kissing the ground in front of their adoring fans.</p>
<p>Thank fuck for that because people are already whispering, hushed and concerned murmurs breaking out over his near fall, eyeing him with interest and suspicion. </p>
<p>“What the fuck,” Ben says, more than a little hysterical. “Is that Dad?”</p>
<p>Sure, looks like him, Klaus would’ve liked to answer. Right after, No Shit Ben! Way to point out the obvious.</p>
<p>Because standing in the crowd, donned in a striped suit wearing that glaringly familiar monocle is Sir Hargreeves in person, a glass of Champaign held in his hand. Watching the show unimpressed as always.</p>
<p>Maybe, if they didn’t move or breath, he would go away.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>You can run but you won't make it far, you can't hide from who you are [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>263</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>High Society Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Good news: I've already written about 14k words for my whumptober one-shot.<br/>Bad news: I'm terrible at figuring out endings, but we'll see how it goes!</p>
<p>Meanwhile have this. I've seen quite a few rewrites of Season Two and I couldn't resist joining the fray. They did my medium boy dirty this season and I can't leave that unfixed. The cult will become an actual useful plot point as the series progresses.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time travel hit harder than any of his drugs ever did.</p>
<p>The lurch in his stomach, the nausea. Like his entrails were trying to crawl up his throat while his head spun on a carousel that slowly came to a stop. An invisible hand squeezing the air out of his lungs. It’s different from travelling with a briefcase, Five’s power shoving him through time itself, set his skin ablaze.</p>
<p>He’s sweating and dizzy due to getting chewed up in a blender and then spit out onto dry land. The first thing he does is retch, dry coughs rattling his chest as nothing comes up to vomit into the trash can he landed two feet away from.</p>
<p>But nothing hit harder than to find himself alone again.</p>
<p>No. Not alone. He has Ben standing guard, watching his back. An ever-present shadow he could apparently bring forth into the light of the living if he wanted to. That’s a new development he’d rather not think about before he works himself up into a panic attack.</p>
<p>The thought of ghosts being able to touch him is a big no-no in his books. Nightmare fuel right there.</p>
<p>Because the one he’s living in now isn’t scary enough on its own. Obviously. Landing in a foreign time, dead on his feet from withdrawal and coming back from war suffering from the grief of losing someone he’d die for, but whom death has ripped from his arms together with a future where he would’ve been happy, must be karma.</p>
<p>Klaus wasn’t meant to be happy. That didn’t mean he doesn’t want to be.</p>
<p>For a moment, back there, he had hope. With his siblings reunited for their Dad’s shitty funeral, finally talking to each other again, it felt real. Beneath the haze of drugs clouding his mind, their voices soothed something in his chest that cracked years ago. His heart began to beat again, and he’d no longer felt like a dead man walking among the living.</p>
<p>Of course, it couldn’t last.</p>
<p>Dear old Dad had done his damage. Old habits were stuck, coded into each of them like Mom’s had been and he was ignored, brushed aside with distaste, left to fend for himself.</p>
<p>They didn’t care about him beyond the merest minimum. Out of sight out of mind, right?</p>
<p>“C’mon,” he mumbles, fists clenched and glowing a soft blue. “Incoming call on line four for the Hargreeves.”</p>
<p>Ben watches him, eyebrows drawn together as he tries and fails to get an answer. The light fades from his hands, leaving him pale and shaky on his feet.</p>
<p>“Guess, it’s just you and me, Casper,” he says, wheezing out a laugh that sends him into another coughing fit. Curling into himself with his arms hugging his stomach, he shouldn’t be surprised that he managed to slip through the hands of his siblings. They never were good at catching him whenever he fell, barreling straight towards rock bottom. Except for Ben.</p>
<p>Ben couldn’t have caught him but here he was, picking him back up without fail every time. Telling him to get up, get some food, to stop looking like it’s the end of the world when he didn’t do so when they were dealing with the literal apocalypse.</p>
<p>The nostalgia nearly manages to coax a smile out of him.</p>
<p>It’s déjà vu at its finest. All he needs is a bag of pills and they’d be right back where they started.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>By some stroke of dumb luck Klaus’ powers end up as an asset instead of a liability.</p>
<p>It’s a nightmare tiptoeing along the ice in the hopes of not crashing through the frozen lake into the cold waters waiting to swallow him whole and drag him down further. For all that he’s manifested Ben in the theater all these months ago, he has no idea how to read the instructions on a manual he’s never been handed.</p>
<p>Manifesting is a trial and error run the first few weeks. Sometimes Ben won’t become corporal at all and other times, some wayward ghost that found their way into his room will shake him awake during the night.</p>
<p>These incidents leave him unable to sleep, shaking and afraid of the lurking shadows just waiting for their chance to latch onto him, to wrap their fingers around his neck and squeeze the air out of his lungs to steal his breath and it’s the closest he comes to breaking his sobriety.</p>
<p>Ben wouldn’t let him.</p>
<p>A fight breaks out. One of the worst they had in years. They’re both desperate for solutions to their problems that end up contradicting each other’s. Two negatives don’t make a positive in their case. Accusations are thrown around, ones that linger in every glance they share and there’s little else Klaus wants more in the world than drugs to forget that night.</p>
<p>There’s never been a choice for him to make between his family and the drugs. Just like he’s never really had a choice between living without the ghosts or with them. The drugs gave him that choice, that freedom to be on his own without the extra baggage to carry along for the ride.</p>
<p>Apparently, it wasn’t a choice between the ghosts and his family, but between them and him.</p>
<p>Ben called him selfish for choosing himself.</p>
<p>
  <em>“The only thing you care about is yourself.”</em>
</p>
<p>And he is. Klaus knows that he’s selfish for a variety of reasons, but he’s never felt selfish about helping himself when nobody else had wanted to.</p>
<p>Not until Ben.</p>
<p>Those rehab offers and promises to get him clean were nothing to him. All they’d do is to bring back the ghosts and make the problem go away his brothers and sisters didn’t want to deal with. They wanted to help themselves, not Klaus.</p>
<p>So, he helped himself, no matter what his siblings thought of that. Because at the end of the day, he’d be clean and left to the ghosts. Just like now.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Is it too much to ask of you to help me when I know you can?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>His instinctual reaction had been denial. “I can’t fix you, Ben! Don’t you get it? I can’t give you back your old life.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“I don’t want my old life back!” Ben had shouted, composure lost at how close the bottle of whiskey was to Klaus’ lips. “I want a new one. I don’t want to be stuck as a background-character in yours any longer, forgotten and powerless. Living through you isn’t the same as living with you. I don’t want to be an echo anymore.”</em>
</p>
<p>Except Ben didn’t leave. Didn’t really want to like Klaus thought he did. Ben just wanted to be noticed and that was a sentiment Klaus understood. There’s also Dave to worry about and being high isn’t the first impression he wants to make when he finds him.</p>
<p>The whiskey ended up being poured out the window under Ben’s relieved and surprised eyes and Klaus got himself a guard dog while he slept for as long as it took to get his manifesting of spirits under better control.</p>
<p>With better control came newfound fame. He’d spoken to one ghost too many within earshot of too many people. Instead of being sent to the loony bin they looked at him with awe in their eyes, asking him to describe whatever ghost he spoke to at the moment.</p>
<p>A prophet. That’s what they called him and it took every bit of willpower for Klaus not to burst out laughing the first time he hears the kind old lady who picked him off the streets, introduce him as such to her friends after speaking to her deceased mother on accident. She died young and heart attacks weren’t obvious to the eye, sue him for thinking she was a nice young lady hanging around the place for a bit of chit chattering.</p>
<p>The brat upstairs must be loving his popularity. Just the thought of her stomping her feet has him fight back a grin and while Ben isn’t overjoyed on him milking that deal for all it’s worth, it isn’t like Klaus isn’t justified in using his powers to make his life a little easier. Potentially pissing off God in the process is just an added bonus.</p>
<p>Survival always came first and adapting to the environment was important. He gets extra practice with his powers every time he has Ben lift him in the air while keeping him invisible and he’s doing no real harm outside of emptying wallets.</p>
<p>Ben can’t expect him not to run a little wild with that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s way in over his head.</p>
<p>It’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last. Klaus has enough self-awareness to realize when he fucks up. Under a lifetime of living under dear old Reggie, who had a tally sheet and added a new line to keep track of how many times Klaus or one of his less hated siblings made a mistake a day while pointing every single one out in the hopes of crippling their self-esteem, Klaus learned he couldn’t do right. He fucked things up because he was a fuck up himself. Easy math.</p>
<p>Five would be so proud of him for solving that equation.</p>
<p>Everything he touched got ruined. His time with Dave taught him that. He had the touch of death that brought nothing but pain and misery to those foolish enough to let him get close.</p>
<p>Dad should’ve named him Black Widow. Leeching off others and throwing them away like yesterday’s trash after he’s done. A fitting superhero alias for him.</p>
<p>Rehab told him making mistakes was normal, human. Realizing he had a problem and did something wrong was the first step to recovery, they said, with Ben nodding along in the background like an eager schoolboy. Jokes on them, Klaus has never been normal a day in his life, how could he be when his life was one large mistake to begin with?</p>
<p>Coming to think of it, he was never really human either. Normal people didn’t have powers that made their lives utter hell.</p>
<p>The point was, fucking up was as easy as breathing to Klaus. Doing something about his mistakes, however, was a different story. That seemed like a lot of effort on his part and he couldn’t bring himself to care when all his energy went into fixing himself, not other people or the world. What had the world ever done for him? Nothing good. They’re not his responsibility. The only one he’s responsible for is himself and the jury’s still out on whenever he could manage to get his shit together or not.</p>
<p>The drugs could help. Could clear his head and numb his worries. Get him some peace and quiet to think without all the voices and—</p>
<p>No, that was the cravings speaking. Klaus had done plenty of dumb stuff sober <em>and</em> high out of his mind but he wasn’t popping pills anymore. Look at that, another attempt of fixing a problem, though he wasn’t sure how long that would last. Almost six months now.</p>
<p>He couldn’t believe it. Neither could Ben.</p>
<p>Ben, who insisted they celebrate the anniversary in their room, away from his newfound patron—sweet lady, really, but her motherly behavior was too overwhelming sometimes. The line of a well-meaning, lonely woman in need of company after having no children off her own, or grandkids who could fill the spot and a sugar mommy blurred too often in his first six months with her. For now, the physical touches hadn’t led up to an offer to have sex, so they probably won’t.</p>
<p>Thank Christ. Time-travel or not, he’d like to honor Dave’s memory a bit longer.</p>
<p>“You’re making that face again.”</p>
<p>Snapping out of his thoughts, Klaus turns to look at Ben.</p>
<p>“What face? Have you been staring at me, again? Careful there. I know my face is sexy and all, but you’re dangerously close to sending the wrong message. Leave the incest to One and Three, the experts, yeah?”</p>
<p>Ben doesn’t spare his teasing more than a passing grimace from his place on his armchair. He frowns, narrowing his eyes at Klaus, putting his book away after marking the page.</p>
<p>“Your “I-want-to-stuff-myself-full-of-a-shitload-of-drugs-again” face.”</p>
<p>“That’s my default setting.”</p>
<p>Ben’s expression turns sour, a lecture sitting on the tip of his tongue. “Klaus—” he says, warningly.</p>
<p>“That was a joke! Ever heard of those? Try laughing next time, okay? I’m giving sobriety my best shot.”</p>
<p>He gestures to his glass of ice-tea, shaking it lightly, nearly getting his pants wet in the process of spilling his drink. Ben relaxes into his seat, the angry stern lines around his mouth melting away.</p>
<p>Huffing out an annoyed sigh, Klaus turns back to nibble on his anniversary cupcake. “I’m doing this mostly for you, so a bit off gratitude wouldn’t be unwelcome. Do you have any idea how hard it is to remain clean when temptations lie around every corner?”</p>
<p>“Right. You’re doing this for me,” Ben says, flatly.</p>
<p>Klaus blinks, not following about what got Ben’s panties into a twist. “Well, yeah. Not like there’s any other ghost around I could play favorites with, now is there?” He licks frosting off his lips, leaning against his headboard, meeting Ben’s gaze.</p>
<p>For once in his life he unintentionally seems to have said the right thing instead of putting his foot into his mouth. The bitterness drains from Ben’s eyes, leaving them soft and warm rather than cold and flinty.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Ben’s face glitches in the way ghosts did whenever Klaus control would waver during his first attempts of manifesting them into the physical plane of existence. “Do you…do you want to talk about…him?” There’s something awkward lingering in the way he speaks, almost afraid of crossing a line, which is bullshit. Between them hesitation and secrecy never existed.</p>
<p>Throat closing up, Klaus looks away.</p>
<p>“He’s not dead yet, y’know.” Dave is alive and that’s more than Klaus could ever hope for.</p>
<p>Ben makes a noise in mild protest, half-alarm. <em>“Klaus—"</em></p>
<p>“I mean, that’s good. Fucking fantastic. Nobody wants the love of their life to be dead. Even I’m not that much of an asshole. It sucks though, because I know he’s right there, that he’s going to die if I don’t do anything about him enlisting into that fucking Vietnam, but…”</p>
<p>Klaus trails off, mouth going dry and when he closes his eyes, he sees Dave’s smile in his mind, slightly crooked but so warm and happy to see him, a rarity of its own, for someone to look at him like he’s the rain after drought and his chest throbs with affectionate for the man who taught him what loving himself feels like. Loving came so easy with Dave around to remind him there must be good in him, that hating anything Dave could love was next to impossible.</p>
<p>But Dave wouldn’t look at him like that. Not anymore. Not when he has no idea who Klaus is, aside from a stranger out of time. The reminder twists his heart through a cheese grater. The thought of seeing nothing but confusion, friendly indifference at best, upon meeting someone he’d never stopped loving makes him dizzy with cold sweat.</p>
<p>What if Dave wouldn’t believe him? Klaus doesn’t think he could handle that. Being called a liar by the one person he never thought to lie to, never wanted to be anything less than honest to for better or worse, makes his fingers itch for a joint. Maybe alcohol would wash the dryness away, would make it a bit easier to speak when the time came.</p>
<p>And it would. Because his impulse control didn’t exist and the excuses rang shallow in his own ears. Klaus owed it to him to try.</p>
<p>There’s no price he wouldn’t pay for Dave to live. Their time together withstanding.</p>
<p>That might be the first selfless decision he ever came to make and without Five, or any of his siblings around to tell him off for messing up the timeline, or whatever, he knows with a clarity he hadn’t felt since he was thirteen staring down the handful of pills in his grip in their dim-lit bathroom, how his future will turn out.</p>
<p>“…but that’s plenty of years away. Who knows, Five might show up and take us on another bender around the timeline before I can do as much as blink. Rip my decision right out of my hands into his own little grubby ones. Worrying myself silly now when I have other things to worry about is making my head hurt.”</p>
<p>Klaus lets out a long shaky breath, head thudding against the wall. He takes a swing from his cup, pretends there’s a healthy dose of vodka in the ice tea that he can’t taste and laughs a little.</p>
<p>“Way to drag down the mood, Casper. This was supposed to make me feel good about being a clean little boy scout, not the other way around.”</p>
<p>He turns his head to look at Ben, with his eyes cracked open a bit, to find his brother’s chair empty.</p>
<p>A hand touches his knee, cool and familiar.</p>
<p>“Wanna take a bite?” Klaus holds up his half-eaten cupcake into Ben’s face. “I swear there’s no pot in there this time.”</p>
<p>Ben takes the olive branch, reads the sign for what it is. <em>“I don’t have taste buds,”</em> he says mildly, eyes flickering down to the cupcake and then up to Klaus’ face. He can see the light bulb turn on over his brother’s head.</p>
<p>Klaus sits up straight, flailing his arms. “Ben, don’t you fucking dare—”</p>
<p>The rest of his words are cut off with a shriek of outrage as Ben lunges forward and squishes the frosted part of the cupcake into his face. They end up on the floor, having fallen off the bed, wrestling with each other as Klaus attempts to smear the frosting that sticks to his beard, nose and chin onto Ben, rubbing their cheeks together as Ben squirms, groaning about sharp elbows and hair in his mouth.</p>
<p>“Gross! Do everybody a favor and shave the racoon off your face.”</p>
<p>“Hey, I’ll have you known people think it’s sexy!”</p>
<p>“Your reflection in the mirror doesn’t count as “people”.”</p>
<p>Reaching for the pillow on his bed, digging his knee into Ben’s stomach to keep him down, Klaus whacks him over the head. “Just for that, I’m gonna see how long I can grow it out.” and Ben looks so horrified at the threat there, hands frozen in mid-air to shield himself from another hit, that Klaus bursts into laughter.</p>
<p>“Get your boney ass off my ribs.” Ben shoves him off, grumbling under his breath, though there’s a smile he doesn’t bother to hide on his face.</p>
<p>He can’t help but think cheering him up might’ve been Ben’s plan all along.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s always been such a hard concept for himself to grasp. The permanence of death.</p>
<p>There was a pitifully small amount of people Klaus loved. Small enough he could count them on both hands. The number only grew smaller when it involved the people, he’d willingly use his powers for.</p>
<p>All his powers had done was to torment him. Day in and day out for years. Of course, he’d only use them under dire circumstances. For all they revolved around the dead, there was precious little he could use them for in life.</p>
<p>That didn’t stop him from trying.</p>
<p>He’s eleven again, looking up through steel bars, trying to squeeze himself through with a burning shoulder close to popping out of place in the hopes of having another power he didn’t know about, scared out of his mind in the chilly wind of the graveyard dear old Reggie tossed him into.</p>
<p>This time it’s different.</p>
<p>Simply because he’s working with the powers he already has and the fear is absent. Pure determination is flowing through his veins, the blood bright blue. He wills his hands to flare up bluer, to burn brighter until there’s a thin layer of frostbite encasing the tips of his fingers.</p>
<p><em>C’mon</em>, he begs, <em>Diego, Allison, Vanya, Five, Luther.</em></p>
<p>The names are stuck on repeat in his mind like Luther’s old record player blasting Tiffany’s through the house. His fists tingle, his knuckles white underneath all the blue. Klaus refuses to let go, clinging to the rush of power that stretches thin over the minutes turned hours.</p>
<p>The faces of his siblings’ flash through his mind. Five’s surly frown as he clutches a cup of coffee. Diego’s soft eyes and downturned lips. Allison’s fond grin she attempts to hide with a freshly manicured hand. Vanya’s shy smile as she lingers a few steps away. Luther’s furrowed brow, the way he would cross his arms over his chest and fold into himself at Allison’s scolding, looking like a kicked puppy.</p>
<p>Death is a sea. Vast and wide. All he had to do was dip his hands into the icy waters and look for the right souls to drag out. He looks and looks and looks, sinking deeper into the ocean. Deeper to see through the veil of darkness that starts to fog up his sight, the closer he comes to rock bottom.</p>
<p>“No, no, no…” He strains to keep the steady flow of power running. “…just five more minutes!”</p>
<p>His eyes snap open, watching the glow fade from his hands. A glance at the half-burned down candles around his room let him know he’s been doing this longer than he thought. Groaning, he shakes out his aching fists, hearing the joints crack when he reopens them.</p>
<p>“Alright.” He sits down on the edge of his bed, winded and slightly out of breath. “Good news, they’re not dead. Bad news, that isn’t worth much when we don’t know where the fuck they are.”</p>
<p>“When. Not where.”</p>
<p>“Semantics.” Klaus waves Ben’s interjection off. “You haven’t seen any of them either?”</p>
<p>Ben shakes his head, looking at him with concern in his eyes.</p>
<p>Klaus tries hard not to deflate—that’s a good thing—but loneliness is much like the ghosts. Incredibly hard to leave behind. The fear he feels when he looks at Ben and sees the pity shining through, the doubt that they’re really dead and all he’s doing is making a fool of himself, nags at him every other night.</p>
<p>After all, there were even less people that loved Klaus in return. Who’s to say his siblings would come to look for him in their deaths? Vanya won’t. Not after that fiasco. Luther probably wouldn’t either and Allison would try to get to her daughter. Diego had that cop lady of his and Five…well, he can’t picture Five dead.</p>
<p>Dad never showed up, when Klaus had tried to give him a ring that one time. Neither did Dave in the future that was the past. When Dave, someone that looked at him like he was a drug didn’t show his face, well, what could he expect from the others who only tolerated him out of sibling obligation?</p>
<p>“Stop giving me that look.” Klaus lets himself fall back, staring up at his ceiling. He shivers, rolling to wrap himself in his sheets to chase away the unwelcome chill. “I’m not in denial, asshole.”</p>
<p>Just because he didn’t have to deal with the permanency of death doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. There’s a possibility his siblings could have gone into the light without coming to check in on him—which would be really fucking rude—but it’s unlikely.</p>
<p>Ben came for him. They were together in the end.</p>
<p>It’s not like any of them had the ability to check to see if the others were alive should they not be dead. They’d jump to stupid conclusion like Ben and they’d stop looking for each other.</p>
<p>That reason keeps making him sit down dutifully for at least half an hour to meditate—his strays following his examples whenever they catch him, silent and obedient and too hard to shake off for too long—despite his inability to sit still for longer than five minutes.</p>
<p>Klaus refuses to let the doubt waver his resolve. It doesn’t hurt to try. Sure, Ben has to take time off being corporal for a bit the longer Klaus looks, but he’s gone seventeen years without being able to touch anything. A day or two should hardly matter.</p>
<p>If all else fails, he still has Dave.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Almost a year. That’s how long it takes for shit to hit the fan. A new record.</p>
<p>The high society lifestyle is fun for the most part. He’s got a roof over his head and food in his belly—his siblings might not, but thinking about them leaves him in a bad mood. The parties get a little boring and Ben gets more and more exasperated with every new trick Klaus pulls out of his ass to con these people out of their money.</p>
<p>If he’s honest, Klaus is growing pretty tired of the act too. He’s good at manifesting Ben now. Better than he was four months ago. They could pack up and travel around for a while. The mansion is big—familiar in a way he doesn’t want to associate with his new life style, but Klaus is starting to feel restless with all these people that look at him and see someone different.</p>
<p> Someone <em>better</em>.</p>
<p>It’s disconcerting. Flipping the coin and finding himself on the other side. People no longer look at him in disgust. They don’t dismiss him without second thought or call his antics embarrassing or let him know through body language or outright sneers that they think him less— <em>“Junkie, useless, disappointing, the list goes on and on”—</em>and don’t want to be seen with him. </p>
<p>Which is fine. Really. That’s how Klaus lived his life, the shoes he used to walk in were not necessary the nicest most fashionable pair, but they were comfortable and well-worn. Dirty and tattered as they were—it’s not like he ever gave people the chance to think of him differently.</p>
<p>Except for now. Here, people seek him out for his company. They listen to what he says even when it’s utter nonsense and it’s all he ever wanted. To be listened to and heard.</p>
<p>Too bad he’s not nearly as happy about the attention as he thought he’d be.</p>
<p>It feels cheap like the drugs he brought without money. These people look at him and see his powers and after a life without them, being reduced to nothing more than his ghosts rubs him the wrong way.</p>
<p>Knowing himself is something Klaus took pride in. He never hesitated in being who he is—whenever that meant wearing questionable fashion choices people had no right to criticize or drugs or smooching off people that were better off without him. Those were parts of him. Just like his ghosts, though he’s done his best to bury them.</p>
<p>In a way, he thinks, he doesn’t know himself at all. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like a stranger amongst the crowd of people that soak up his words like flowers soak up sunshine.</p>
<p>A change of scenery would help him clear his head. To get away from expectations would do him some good—he’s not running away, Ben, shut up. It’d get him back on track and who knows. Word might get out about him to his siblings. He’s caught some of his followers wearing his tattoos last week. If that becomes a trend it’s bound to be noticed.</p>
<p>He always knew he’d become a trendsetter. He’s not nearly as happy as he thought he would be about that. With nobody around to rub it into their face all he feels about that is unsettled, maybe a tiny bit offended someone is coping his style. Another thing he’d been wrong about.</p>
<p>The Umbrella Academy is no stranger to fans. Even the more obsessive kind hadn’t given them much grief in the years to come. Except for that Harold guy. Fucker got way too close and Klaus gets it now. Why they had strict orders to keep to themselves.</p>
<p>His fans, followers, community, whatever they call themselves nowadays—as long as it’s not a fucking cult, because Ben has been putting that label on for the better part of the year now and that drives him crazy—need to learn how to take a hint.</p>
<p>Nobody gave them permission to hang around, to sleep in his garden. They won’t leave him alone. They listen to what he says less and less when it means to fuck off and leave him alone and it’s one of the reasons, he got to live in one of the empty estates of his patron.</p>
<p>It’s time for a bit of fresh air. Ben always wanted to travel. Just the two of them.</p>
<p>They could do that now. Go on some sort of spiritual quest. After today’s gathering, he’d propose the idea to his partner in crime and they’d be on their merrier way in the morning, leaving the living ghosts behind in a cloud of dust.</p>
<p>Except, their trip got cancelled.</p>
<p>Klaus might just die of a heart attack first.</p>
<p>He can feel the moment Ben catches sight of the man, buckling under Klaus’ weight with his hands easing their hold of his waist. For a single, breathless second, he fears Ben will drop him, dumbstruck as they both are to see a familiar face in the crowd, but Ben corrects his stance when Klaus begins to tilt dangerously to one side, making a strangled noise similar to a cat getting run over by a truck and saves him from kissing the ground in front of their adoring fans.</p>
<p>Thank fuck for that because people are already whispering, hushed and concerned murmurs breaking out over his near fall, eyeing him with interest and suspicion.</p>
<p>“What the fuck,” Ben says, more than a little hysterical. “Is that Dad?”</p>
<p><em>Sure, looks like him</em>, Klaus would’ve liked to answer. Right after, <em>No Shit Ben</em>! Way to point out the obvious.</p>
<p>Because standing in the crowd, donned in a striped suit wearing that glaringly familiar monocle is Sir Hargreeves in person, a glass of Champaign held in his hand. Watching the show unimpressed as always.</p>
<p>Maybe, if they didn’t move or breath, he would go away.</p>
<p>Tearing his eyes away in order to prevent uncomfortable eye-contact with Reginald, he stares at a spot on the white pristine walls, willing himself to turn invisible like Ben or to become a statue. He’d make a pretty one in the right suit with some body paint.</p>
<p>Ben turns around, swaying lightly on his feet, startling him. Klaus doesn’t know if ghosts can faint, but he swears if Ben blinks away like Five used to as a child whenever he didn’t want to deal with a situation now, it’d be the last time he’d be corporal.</p>
<p>Hissing under his breath, Ben’s hands tighten around his waist and spin him around.</p>
<p>“What is he doing here?” Ben asks, glancing up at him as if Klaus would know.</p>
<p>Shrugging as much as the position would allow, he lightly shakes his head.</p>
<p>It’s not too far-fetched to think that Reginald would’ve heard of him—<em>them</em> when he’s been a part of high society for longer than Klaus has been alive. He’d bought seven weird freak births for a hobby after all. Who’s to say he didn’t get curious over a well-known psychic?</p>
<p><em>Go away,</em> Klaus prays, fighting to keep the alluring smile on his face. <em>Kindly, fuck off.</em></p>
<p>He doesn’t dare glance back to check. Turns out, he doesn’t need to.</p>
<p>A barrage of gunshots goes off outside the door, freezing him in mid-air and the faint echoes of screaming is muffled through the door and down the hall. People start screaming, scurrying around like ants, full of panic and tears in a matter of seconds, and the double wooden doors leading to the main hall gets kicked open as Ben whirls around in shock to reveal two blonde men with machine guns in tow.</p>
<p>Aiming straight for him.</p>
<p>“Ben!” He shrieks, blinking out of the gunpowder and echoes of the war, arms flailing uselessly. “Get a fucking move on before I’m swiss cheese!”</p>
<p>He’s tossed away like he weights nothing, right into a table he flips over in his momentum to use as a shield. Crouching lowly behind the wood he clenches his fists, pouring every bit of power into them, into Ben. He catches a glimpse of blood splattering against the walls and burning blue tentacles slamming against the wall. Bodies are sprawled out across the tiles, pools of blood forming and he covers his ears to block out the thunder like roars of the guns.</p>
<p>Daring to risk a peek over the table, he sees an arm go flying, messily ripped off by a tentacle. It lands somewhere in the pile of sprawled out bodies as blood continues to spray, painting his tiles a new shade of red. Ruining his paintings and curtains. He never liked those anyway.</p>
<p>Ben grunts with effort, back arched, reeling to control The Horror.</p>
<p>The man with the missing limb howls, fumbling to stop the bleeding and the small amount of people still breathing either crawl across the floor or push themselves around to get towards another exit and away from Ben and the men storming into the hall. He’s lost sight of Reginald in the crowd and the other man wielding the gun.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, he didn’t remember inviting a bunch of creepers with mask either. They’re tossed aside with a swat of a tentacles, bones broken before they hit the ground. Within minutes the hall is a bloodbath of tortured screaming.</p>
<p>Another war. Just as Klaus considers the risk of crawling across the floor towards a gun one of the windows behind him shatters and he whips around to see the third guy of the triples standing there. Dressed like a man on a mission, shotgun in hand. Of fucking course he’d get a complete set of assassins out for his blood—thanks a lot Five—and he barely manages to knock the gun away from blowing his head off.</p>
<p>He kicks the man in the knee, using both of his feet to knock the guy off his own when he buckles forward. While the guy staggers backwards, not falling on his ass like Klaus hoped he would, Klaus scrambles up, vaulting over the table to duck when the shotgun goes off. Wood splinters and the screaming slowly begins to die down.</p>
<p>“Ben,” he cries out, heart pounding in his chest. “A little help here!?”</p>
<p>“I can’t—"</p>
<p>Eyes growing wide when he notices the glow in his own hands start to dim, he curses under his breath as a boot slams down on top of the table. Head whipping up, he feels the cold steel of the barrel press against his forehead.</p>
<p>Ben’s blood-curdling scream is the last thing he hears before the lights flicker out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Klaus awakens with a stuttering gasp on the blood-soaked tiles of his ballroom floor.</p>
<p>Colors swim in his vision, too bright for his poor eyes to endure. They flash in front of his eyes like the neon lights in clubs, flickering and burning. He groans, ribs shifting under his wheezing attempts of sucking air into his lung while trying his hardest not to throw up. Moving as much as a finger seems impossible—his limbs heavy with fatigue and aches and a disarray of bruises painting him black, purple and blue. He always did bruise far too easily to his liking.</p>
<p>Rolling over in his half-twisted position, his leg drops to the floor until he’s spread out on his back, arms outstretched. Drenched in sweat, blood and tears. Ben must’ve gotten his ribs squished upon throwing him across the room like some cheap figure-skater. Or a pizza-tosser. They definitely feel bruised and he’s going to piss blood for weeks that much he knows.</p>
<p>Silence echoes eerily across the vast empty hall. Coming back to life seems to drain his powers for a hot minute, leaving his mashed potatoes for brains to reboot itself until the ghosties plop back up on his screen and he tries to savor the quietness, waiting for the world to stop spinning in circles around his head.</p>
<p>Christ, his skull is on fire. Definitely worse than his experience back at the rave. At least his brain didn’t feel like it got rearranged into a new shape by a sculptor with a hammer and nail.</p>
<p>Why did everything hurt? The last thing he remembers is the party, faceless smiling people crowding around him and awing at Ben twirling him around. Did he get motion sick?</p>
<p>No. There were guns. Loads and loads of ammo being fired. People dropping like flies around the vast space of the room. A massacre of blood and shouting and bullet rains.</p>
<p>Klaus lets out a moan, chest heaving up and down.</p>
<p>“Marvelous,” a voice speaks and he flinches, squinting up at the blurry face leaning over him, the shadow falling across his body dosses him not only in shade but also in an icy chill.</p>
<p>“It appears you’ve come back from the dead, young man.”</p>
<p>Klaus stops breathing.</p>
<p>Because the face staring down at him is one, he <em>knows</em>. From his nightmares and memories and paintings across the halls of his childhood home.</p>
<p>“Urgh, not again,” he groans long sufferingly, making no move to get up. No amount of furious blinking gets his vision to grow clearer—it’s like looking through a foggy glass window. “Seriously? We gotta stop meeting like this.”</p>
<p>“Pardon?”</p>
<p>Maybe it’s the way Reginald speaks, void of the loathing and disapproving lit to his voice that makes Klaus reconsider the fact that he doesn’t feel dead. Blinking up at Reginald’s bemused face, he can feel his heart falter in his chest—which means he’s very much alive.</p>
<p>And at Reginald Hargreeves’ mercy.</p>
<p>“Oh, shit,” Klaus scrambles away, fingers gliding through the blood on the floor and he slips, legs failing uselessly in his attempt to get away. “No, no, no! You gotta be kidding me.”</p>
<p>“Young man—”</p>
<p>“<em>Hell</em> no,” Klaus jabs a finger up at the man, panic blindsiding him. “You stay away. Don’t take another step closer, you hear me? The fuck are you still doing in my house? The show’s over, go home.”</p>
<p>He looks around for Ben, biting back a whimper when he sees the sheer amount of bodies littering the floor. Not a soul left alive, save for dear old Reggie and himself. Figures the old man would survive—he’s still a firm believer of the theory that the man can’t be killed unless it’s by his own hand. Judging from the blood staining his suit front, he’s taken down a fair share of the hit squad himself.</p>
<p>The freaky monocle is still clean. Not a speck of blood to be seen. In fact, there’s no blood on Reginald’s face at all and he doesn’t know why, but the blank, naked face kicks his heartbeat into overdrive.</p>
<p>Alarm bells roar to life inside his head, awfully loud and insisted and he…</p>
<p>He needs to—He needs to <em>run</em>. Away from the crime scene and Reginald fucking Hargreeves.</p>
<p>He can’t stay here. He’s not about to go to jail for something he hasn’t done. If he’s lucky, he can make it to the car and drive into a different state, leaving behind the massacre what would no doubt be led back to him and his “cult”.</p>
<p>The police would chalk it up to ritual sacrifices or some shit. He’d get killed twenty times over for this. Literally.</p>
<p>“Cease your rudeness, boy,” Reginald says. “Have your parents not taught you any manners?”</p>
<p>Klaus bites down on his tongue to stifle the overwhelming urge to burst out into laughter. It slips out anyway, short bursts of hysterical giggling while he tries to get his feet to cooperate.</p>
<p>“Can’t say they haven’t tried,” Klaus says, scrambling backwards. “But my Dad was a dick, so anything he taught me went straight into the trash where it belonged and then got lit on fire.”</p>
<p>He stumbles to his feet, swaying from dizziness. His head throbs violently, dark spots appearing in his vision when he fails to get his breathing back under control. He’s hyperventilating, the faint echo of screaming beginning to clog up in his ears. He catches sight of Ben, staring dumbstruck at Reginald as his legs throw the fight in keeping him standing on his feet and he falls, eyes rolling into the back of his head.</p>
<p>The last thing he registers is the ground knocking painfully against his jaw, jostling his ribs and the bolt of pain shooting up his spine.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Alright, folks, I don't know how far this idea will go, but I'm willing to run with it for now. I have like 20% of an outline regarding where this story will go and the rest will be made up along the way.</p>
<p>Don't be shy to ramble in the comments. Your feedback is the fuel to the fire that is my writing motivation.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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